


The Valleys and Peaks of a Mountain Range on Fire

by Anonymous



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, hopelessness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:49:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Just a few things I wrote for /rbmk/, posting them here for posterity. Mostly deal with characters thoughts at the end of the series.





	1. Chapter 1

Valery had never felt more alone. But having finished the tapes, he knew that his work was done. Perhaps no one would ever hear them, and he would die in relative obscurity, but he had to try something. 

After sending the tapes to a few different intellectuals, he set out food for Sasha. There was no reason for her to suffer, hopefully someone would find her before she could. 

His last thoughts were of his friends, he hoped they had made out better than he had. He never sold them out, it was a secret he was going to take to his grave. As he tied the knot, he only wished that he could have said goodbye to them. 

Especially Boris, who he realized was the only friend he had left. All the others had been cut out of his life by the KGB, but he had a feeling the party man could never hate him. 

He had never considered the afterlife, it was unscientific. But he knew why people wanted a better life after this one, to tie up any loose ends. But in his career, he had learned that there was never a chance.

In the end, there was only silence. 

The KGB has finally got what they wanted from him.


	2. Boris Losing Valera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> commence the sad

The trial had been a farce, Boris had been to his fair share of show trials. It was nowhere near the first time he had been brought out to sandbag someone. But it gave him a chance to show just how intelligent he was, and Valery and him had worked on it together. 

He wanted to do what was right, and it felt good to. Rather than lying for the state, he was doing what he knew to be the right thing. 

One of his favourite memories was sharing a bottle of Vodka with the scientist and shooting the shit. Most of their time they spent together wasn’t spent discussing science, it was mostly just being friends. Something he wasn’t used to in his chosen profession. 

He felt a bit of pride watching as Valera presented what happened that night. He could follow it more than the tribunal seemed to be, and it felt good. He could see how nervous Valery was, after all, he was a scientist, not a politician. For being a man of science, he was handling it well. 

They had plans to meet up after the trial for a drink, have a friendly conversation. It was almost easy to forget their impending doom looming over their heads, they could just be friends instead of comrades in death. 

When they were wrapping up the testimony, Valery opened his mouth. Was he trying to get himself killed, he asked himself. But if Valery thought this was the right thing to do, who was Boris to question. He watched as everyone seemed to brush him off before standing up. 

“Let him talk.” He was possibly throwing away his entire career, but he trusted Valera. With more than his life. And if he needed to get this out, he was going to let him. 

As the other man spoke, he realized what he was doing. He was throwing everything away to tell the truth. Valery was being stupidly brave again. 

There was no way either of them was making it out of this unscathed, but Valery was a desperate man. He needed to say his peace. 

~~~ 

After the trial he watched as Valery was led out by nameless agents. He was met with his own, where they gave him a thinly veiled threat if he ever made contact with the scientist again. 

He was never to see Valera, the man who had shown him the error of the party he had so blindly followed for decades. 

As he was led to the car he looked across the lot, where Valery was being led to his own sentence. He hadn’t been given a bullet to the face, but was that sometimes a better ending than being condemned to living alone. 

His eyes said it all. Valery was never good at hiding his emotions, but he looked so.. Hollow. Like Boris had been during their conversation. And Boris was never going to be able to return the favour for him. 

As Valery was shoved into the car, he was never going to tell him that he was the one who mattered most.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next phase of the story brehs   
> enjoy /RBMK/

Valery awoke in a bed. 

It was similar to the one he had slept in when he was a teenager, barely large enough for him. There was sunlight streaming in behind some curtains, but it was nice. The last thing he remembered was his regrets, where was he? 

He seemed to be in a small cabin in the woods, when he went outside, there were trees in all directions. Secluded, he thought to himself. If this was the afterlife, was it heaven or hell? Being alone could be either for most people.

As he explored the cabin he realized that it was just what he wanted. Small, secluded, and with a library. It was filled with works he had never even seen before, he could spend a lifetime just reading what was contained inside. He found tomes on history, a subject Boris had been very fond of, and thought of him. 

Maybe it was hell, he was cursed to be alone without any resolution from the other man. 

~~ 

Time passed. 

 

It was hard to tell how much, there never seemed to be a changing of the seasons. Just day to night, and back to day. About a year after he had arrived, he wished anything out of the ordinary would happen. 

When he awoke the next morning, it was to a crack of thunder. He went out and felt the rain falling on him, enjoying the change. He wondered what else he could change with a thought, but kept to his reading and research. 

After a few more weeks, he heard a mewling at the door. When he opened it, Sasha burst in, nuzzling the scientists pantleg. He had missed her almost more than anyone, she understood when the scientist needed the affection. The company. 

She would sleep with him at night, and during the day, lay in the window. He wondered how she had arrived here, but was glad that she was happy now. She seemed content to spend her eternity with the scientist, and he couldn’t argue that he had needed the company more than anything. 

At night he would wonder about Boris, he had been giving a hard 5 year limit to his life, he wondered if he had been suffering. Valery had felt the effects the radiation had taken on him almost immediately when he got back. He had trouble sleeping, his hair was falling out. He was almost glad no one visited him, to them, he would have looked like an old man falling apart. 

There were no mirrors in the house, and maybe that was for the best.

But here, he felt like he wass in perfect shape. If a bit younger then he had been at the end of his life. His hair wasn’t falling out, he didn’t feel the acne scars. He felt like he was fresh out of university. Maybe that was when he was the happiest, a young idealist ready to take on the world. He hadn’t had the ideas of the party beaten into him. 

He wondered what he did to deserve any of this, he felt ihs time at Chernobyl was retribution to all the people he had stepped on to get his position. It was ironic in a way, people stepped on him and ruined his life once they got what they wanted, and he stepped out of line. 

Atleast Sasha didn’t care for such things, he could tell her everything and she would simply mewl and roll over so he could pat her stomach. 

As time passed he grew to dislike the silence. At first it was comforting, but now he was left alone with his thoughts. The silence was more imposing than someone telling him he was a failure, it meant he had to reflect on his life. His failures. 

Well over two years in, and he was starting to go mad. Sasha could tell when he was in a mood, choosing to not talk to her for an entire day, just staying in his own head.


End file.
